Perennial are back with a new offering of danceable tunes, a stronger connection to the studio as instrument, and a newfound finesse. The operating principle is something like “simplicity is a virtue,” and they’ve honed in on a raison d’etre over the course of their LPs: art for the sake of it, for your enrichment and your connection to the world around you.

The constant tinkering of their songs gives the impression of a restless band always reaching for something better than the last time, and in reworking an older batch of songs on The Leaves of Autumn Symmetry, they concede that the best that you’re capable of at any given moment is a shifting target.

In the Midnight Hour is easily CT band Perennial’s most fully realized offering in a discography getting to be full of high concept, high energy punk rippers. They retain everything that made them great previously – incendiary performances, huge sounding riffs with teeth, an interest in the studio – and tightened it up to surgical precision.